My liberal and conservative views

Someone asked me about which issues I am liberal on and which I am conservative on. Fair enuff. That would at least give you good folks a better feel for my thinking, that there is a certain madness to my methods.

Issues that I am a bleedin’ heart libbrul on:

1.) CEOs that get whopping pay raises while their employees get pay cuts.

Little else gets my inner tree-hugger going than hearing about the sinful amounts of pay that some CEOs and other execs get; especially when their companies are in financial dire straits. The usual pitiful excuses that they try to offer up to explain the pay dichotomy between themselves and their employees just comes across to my ears as "blahblahblah." How many of their employees' retirement plans could just one of their golden parachutes finance? Okay, I'm already getting worked up - I better stop!

2.) The death penalty.

This practice belongs in the Middle Ages. If we can lock these guys away for the rest of their lives with a career of making license plates ahead of them, then I say do it. There’s enough barbarity in our society today (legalized abortion and the starvation death of Terri Schiavo) without adding the death penalty in the mix. Whoops, too late, it's already in the mix.

3.) The war in Iraq.

I covered this topic last week. See details there.

Issues that I am a hardhead (or is it “hardline”?) conservative on:

1.) Legalized abortion.

It is an absolute conflict in logic that a society that claims to be the most educated and enlightened in human history can allow something as barbaric as legalized abortion. There’s so much wrong with it that I don’t know where to begin! The way I see the issue of legalized abortion: the innocent unborn are charged with the "crime" of an inconvenient existence, and the sentence is execution.

2.) Tuition vouchers.

Despite the arguments about vouchers taking funds away from the public school system, or that they violate the church/state line, or that they draw away the best and the brightest, leaving all the "problem children" in public schools (among other arguments, all of which can be refuted - and for which I just might do in a separate blog entry), I still believe that it is the best plan to come along to help the poor get a better education as well as offer an alternative to public schools. But the "right to choose" apparently applies only to the abortion issue (By the way, the very first column that got reprinted in a major city newspaper was on this very issue).

3.) Public celebrations of Christmas

I can't believe that so many public institutions have gone to the lengths that they have to keep from saying "Merry Christmas". It's as if that, for that month of the year, they forget that we all have the freedoms of speech, expression, and religion. This should not even be an issue - especially not the issue that it's become.

Issues that don't fit neatly one one side of the aisle or the other

1.) Immigration

I am for securing our borders, but against making English the official language of the U.S. Since it is impossible to send everyone back to the country of their origin, I believe that we should reach out to those illegals and take steps to make them legal. We should return the bad ones, of course, but many of the illegals contribute to our society - but they are here illegally, and that must be resolved. This issue is very complex (and complicated by the fact that illegals come here because there's work for them here by companies that hire them), and it won't be resolved anytime soon. Sure you could punish the hiring companies, but as long as these companies can get cheap labor, they'll keep trying to hire illegals.

2.) Stem cell research

I support all stem cell research that does not involve embryos. Embryonic stem cell research has produced zero results, while the non-controversial stem cells have worked in almost all the ways that supporters of embryonic stem cell research wished embryonic stem cells would work. Thus, I think it's a waste of research money to spend any more funds toward the controversial stem cells that won't ever get us anything.

3.) Free speech and free expression

Normally this would be considered a liberal issue, but in recent years liberals have shown themselves to be just as intolerant of the free speech of others when those others happen to harbor views that conflict with their own views. That’s hypocrisy, folks. For example, the brouhaha over Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” in 2004. Hypocrisy was coming out of the liberals’ ears! See, it’s behavior such as this that I can’t fully align myself with the left wing.

4.) Legalized euthanasia

I put this here, although now it might start becoming a conservative issue, because many liberals are euphemistically referring to this as “the right to die”. Ack. Not good. We all die sometime, there’s no way around that. But legalized euthanasia is basically a de facto death penalty for those considered having “lives not worth living”. Does that phrase sound familiar? It’s from Nazism! It’s couched in terms of sympathy and compassion, but this issue is rife with the possibility of abuse, and besides, anything that Nazis supported can’t be good.

There are other issues that I could list here, of course, but this at least is a start. Perhaps I’ll post another such list later.